In retrospect, I suppose she resented me. When visiting the Firths with my mother, I took her sister’s attention; also, as a small child I had pretty clothes and hair-ribbons, and the temptation of brilliant red hair that curled of its own accord. She was forever pulling at it, yanking it out by the handful. I had dolls to play with too, dolls that Bella and I were happy to share. Isa never wanted to share anything, and once expressed her resentment by deliberately smashing the china head of my favourite against a stone wall. I was so angry, I banged her head against the wall in much the same way. Thankfully, it didn’t break like china, but raised a lump the size of an egg. It seemed she never forgave me for that.
Isa was the elder by a few minutes, and had revealed herself as a much tougher and more forceful individual. It was almost as though she’d taken a hold on the lion’s share of energy and self-interest at birth, and had spent the years between honing them. More often than nor it seemed to me she treated her sister with contempt, as though Bella was fit only for menial tasks. I felt she was envious of Bella’s looks, since small physical differences had certainly become more marked over the years. Smaller boned than Bella, Isa was thinner and harder in every sense, wearing a perpetually narrowed expression that marred her features and stopped her from being attractive.
She’d started out in Scarborough, then moved on to Middlesbrough, which was a convenient distance away. She was dutiful, sending money often enough to ensure a good name at home, but she didn’t visit often, whereas Bella had been required first of all to mind the house and children, and then to become the family’s mainstay as Cousin Martha gradually gave up.
‘If you wanted to go into service,’ I said once, with all the ignorance at my disposal, ‘you should have fought harder. Honestly, Bella, you give in too easily, sometimes.’
‘Oh, I do, do I?’ she remarked crossly. ‘I fought hard enough for you, if you remember! Anyway,’ she added a moment later, ‘you know what my father’s like, he wouldn’t let me go. Isa always talked back to him, always got the beltings – he was glad to see the back of her. I could always calm him down, though, so it was better for me to stay.’
That was difficult to deny, but even so it seemed wrong to me that Bella should be the sacrificial lamb for the entire family. I felt for her, and was constantly looking for ways out that we could both embrace. But we were hemmed in on so many sides. What we were doing for a living was no more than scraping enough to survive, making our contribution to the Firth family coffers so we could all eat and I could continue to reside under their roof. I told myself that I was biding my time until something better came along, but after six months I was very much aware that what had been enjoyable in the summer was fun no longer. I was beginning to feel trapped.
Eight
It was a long time before I realised what was going on. A combination of fear and ignorance, I suspect, kept me from seeing the truth. Obviously, Bella did not want me to know; she was ashamed, not just of her father but of her own role in that tangle of family relationships.
They all worked hard at keeping things dark, at finding excuses for this or that strange comment or action, and because I was aware of those efforts – although not the reasons behind them – I told myself that it was not my place to question too closely. I was not used to large families; I had no experience of the lies and subterfuge needed to keep the balance between thoughtless children and unpredictable adults. At times, I must confess, it felt as though we were all trundling along in a shaky old cart which was threatening to collapse at any moment. The pothole that finally tipped me out onto the hard road of reality was young Lizzie.
I’d often wondered why Bella was so hard on her. God forgive me, but there was a time when I thought Bella was jealous of her twelve-year-old sister. I even remonstrated with her, and had the extraordinary experience of witnessing Bella – tough, worldly-wise Bella – in tears. The next day she wouldn’t speak to me; and when she did, flatly refused to explain beyond insisting that she loved Lizzie and would never do anything to hurt her.
‘But why do you snap at her all the time, and tell her to clear off whenever your father tries to be nice to her?’
She wouldn’t say, but the question was answered for me just after the New Year. The weather was so bad in the first week of January that fishing came to a halt. Magnus Firth had been hanging around the house for days, morose and ill-tempered by turns, watching and waiting for the weather to improve sufficiently for the brave to get out of the harbour. Fish were so scarce that whoever could do that – and get back in again with the next tide, of course – stood to make a tidy profit on his catch. In order to fish, however, the long-lines had to be baited, so while there was a chance of getting out with the boats, bait had to be either bought or collected. Bella and I took three of the younger children with us to the beach, leaving Lizzie at home with her mother because she had a cough.
We’d not been out long when Davey fell into one of the rockpools and soaked himself through. It was a bitterly cold day and although we hadn’t done much we were glad of an excuse to take him home. When we entered the kitchen he was still shivering and moaning for his mother, but she was nowhere to be seen. Instead, for one shocked instant that seemed to go on forever, we were faced by Magnus Firth with Lizzie across his knee and his hand beneath her skirts. I suppose there might have been an innocent explanation but for the flurry of movement that followed. The girl dived away and ran upstairs, while Magnus shuffled awkwardly in his chair and looked shamefaced.
Somehow, while I stood there wondering just what it was I’d witnessed, Bella managed to behave as usual. She pushed the children towards the stairs, telling Davey to take off his wet things, she’d be up shortly; but once they were gone she rounded on her father with a face like fury. She caught him by the shoulder as he was about to go out, spun him round and, to my horror, punched him in the face. ‘You old bastard!’ she hissed at him, ‘you promised to leave her alone! You’ve got me and Mam – aren’t two of us enough?’
For a split second I think he was as amazed as I was. Then, with a howl of rage, he smacked her in return, hard with the flat of his hand, a blow that sent her reeling across the kitchen towards the fire. I moved to intercept but he was there before me, yanking his eldest daughter upright and smacking her again for good measure. ‘How dare ye strike me?’ he growled into her face. ‘Just remember, ye little bitch – I don’t make bargains with anybody, least of all ye!’
He flung Bella, like a rag doll, into the chair he had so recently vacated, and wiped the blood from his nose. The baby, who had been sleeping in the corner, suddenly started screaming, but I felt weak, incapable, paralysed; then Magnus seemed to realise I’d been witness to everything. On his way to the door he turned and pinned me against the wall. He held his open hand in front of my face. It was a large hand, badly scarred and calloused, criss-crossed with the ingrained lines of tar and oil and lamp-black; I gazed at it in revulsion. Then he made a fist. ‘This is what ye’ll get,’ he promised me under his breath, ‘if ye utter one single word of what goes on in this house . . .’
When he’d gone I sank limply to my knees, gazing at Bella who was more distressed but far less shocked than I was. While the baby howled, she sobbed into her apron, then cursed her father roundly as she noticed blood pouring from her split lip. As she went to the sink to rinse her mouth, I pulled myself together and picked up the baby, rocking him to still the noise.
Clearing my throat, I said tentatively: ‘What’s going on, Bella? What was he doing?’
‘Nothing,’ she muttered. ‘Forget it. You didn’t see anything.’
I had seen something, it was just that I didn’t understand. But Bella’s defensive tone made it impossible for me to ask again.
Minutes later, Cousin Martha came in, carrying a basket with a few items of shopping. I thought I spied a gin bottle beneath the groceries, which may have had something to do with her reasons for going out. Before Bella could ask or accuse, however, her m
other said brightly: ‘Just had to pop out for a bit of bacon for your dad’s tea,’ and when neither of us replied she carried on talking in similar vein, about the weather, the man in the grocer’s shop, the people she’d passed, the conversation she’d had with an old neighbour. She never mentioned Bella’s swollen mouth or the blood-stained cloth she was holding. I wanted to shriek at her.
Bella didn’t shriek, and nothing of any import was said. Nothing about what Magnus Firth might or might not have been doing to Lizzie, nor about the exchange of blows, the threats, and nothing at all about the implications. I was very confused. I felt sure I’d drawn the correct conclusions, appalling though they were, but as the atmosphere settled, it almost seemed as though I’d imagined the whole thing. Except for Bella’s colourful bruises, of course, and Lizzie, who refused to come downstairs for the rest of the day and wouldn’t speak to anyone.
But I looked at them all in a different light after that. I’d never been particularly fond of my cousin Douglas, who at seventeen was a younger, more shadowy version of his father. He was deep and dark somehow, and, although he never did anything to me, I used to catch occasional looks from him which made me uneasy. In spite of his silence and cowed way of walking, I always had the feeling that he was biding his time, waiting to pounce; but then, after the incident in the kitchen, it struck me that Douglas was far more likely to turn on his father than offer any sort of threat to me. As for Ronnie, well, he was a kind lad, eager to please and easy to terrify. He probably had no more idea than the younger ones had; just a feeling of perpetual unease, a knowing that no matter what happened, their father would always be right while they were wrong. And if they dared to speak out, Magnus Firth would seal their mouths with violence.
Although Bella was no stranger to blows, her father rarely marked her face. This time the bruises caused plenty of comment, most of it jesting, particularly from the men; but everyone knew who had caused them, and when we went out that night there were drinks bought and sympathetic glances behind her back. The fishermen were tough characters – they had to be to survive; some of their fights and enmities amounted almost to feuds – but amongst that hard community of men, I had come to understand that Magnus Firth was neither liked nor respected. He called the locals clannish, and kept himself and his boys close, but he could complain of nothing more than a scrupulous fairness, the kind of courtesy afforded to all outsiders. He fished the local waters like the rest of them, but he had never been accepted – and it was not because he was a foreigner. Bella, being female and undeniably attractive, was different.
Buoyed up by a few drinks and friendly banter, she managed to enjoy herself while we were out, and I was glad I’d insisted on the idea. It was not until we were approaching the house that she suddenly broke down.
‘Oh, God, I hate this place – I hate it!’
She cried on my shoulder, tears of such anguish and distress I hardly knew what to do. For both our sakes I longed to get away and take her with me, but at my suggestion she became even more distraught, saying she could not leave poor Lizzie to cope with Magnus on her own. She would have to stay at home until the little ones grew up – unless the sea took her father first. ‘And if there’s any justice in this world at all,’ she muttered vehemently, ‘it’ll take him soon.’
Justice of a kind, I thought; except that with no man to provide for them, the family would be practically destitute. I said nothing, but took advantage of the break in Bella’s grief to get her inside. The house was quiet, the kitchen fire no more than a few glowing embers. Cousin Martha was asleep in the chair, with bottle and glass beside her, while baby Magnus was snoring, flushed of cheek and nose, in the nearby linen basket. It struck me that he might have been dosed with gin to keep him quiet – it seemed to be Cousin Martha’s answer to everything.
Neither of us was sober, but somehow we negotiated the spiral staircase up to my room. Bella flopped on the bed while I staggered about, stripping off my clothes, wincing with cold until I found my flannel nightdress and slipped it over my head. With the addition of a thick woollen shawl across my shoulders, I was ready to climb into bed. I coaxed Bella out of her skirt and bodice, replaced the shawl around her shoulders, and invited her in with me. We hugged each other, rubbing backs and arms to get warm. Tears could not survive against that, and she was soon smiling. I kissed and hugged her close, trying to convey sisterly care and affection, together with the kind of sympathy words could not express. I was afraid that if I tried, she would simply clam up and turn away from me, so I continued holding her, tucking her head beneath my chin and letting her rest against my somewhat bony breast.
It was a comfort to me too. The physical warmth reminded me of my mother, and I had been thinking of her a lot since coming to this house. From my window I could see a certain group of rooftops marking the courtyard where we’d lived years ago. It made me aware of sadness and longing, a desire to turn back the clock and somehow make everything right, then and now.
After a while the candle guttered and, not wanting to disturb Bella who seemed to be asleep, I reached over carefully to snuff it out. Still awake, she clutched at my hand, drawing it back against the warmth of her cheek. ‘Do you hate me, Damsy?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said, stroking her hair. ‘Why should I hate you?’
‘Because of him,’ she murmured. ‘You know – because of what he’s done.’
I paused and searched for the right words. ‘I don’t know what he’s done,’ I said honestly, ‘but if this afternoon is anything to judge by, then whatever it is, I don’t think it’s your fault. How can it be? Whatever was done, he did it, not you. I hate him, your father – but I don’t hate you.’
I was saying only what I believed, what seemed so obvious to me, but Bella hugged me tight with gratitude. She was trembling too, with cold or anxiety, I could not be sure which. I pulled up the blankets around her shoulders and held her close.
‘But,’ she whispered hesitantly, ‘I let him do things to me, don’t you see? I shouldn’t, should I? And it started just like this afternoon. Him being nice as ninepence, sitting me on his knee, giving me a cuddle, telling me I was his favourite. And I believed him, I thought he must love me best if he wanted to do things like that. But the trouble is,’ Bella added, her voice deepening with pain, ‘I could only be best so long as I did what he wanted. And when I wanted it to stop, he wanted to punish me. So I kept on, all these years – and now -’ she broke off, swallowing hard, ‘now he’s started on Lizzie. Poor little Lizzie. That’s why I saw red. I’m sorry.’
The images in my mind were an assault in themselves. I shuddered and hugged her closer. ‘There’s no need to be sorry. How could you help it?’
‘I didn’t want you to know,’ she whispered brokenly. ‘That’s why I’m sorry. It’s disgusting – he’s disgusting.’
‘Yes, he is,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s not your fault. You were just a child, like Lizzie – what could you do?’
It was a rhetorical question but Bella shook her head violently. ‘I don’t know – I don’t know – and that’s God’s truth. But I should have done something – I knew it was wrong, I’ve always known, but I went along with it, I let him do things. And now – oh, God!’ She turned and clung to me, sobbing brokenly. ‘I wanted to kill him, Damsy – this afternoon, when I saw him with Lizzie, I wanted to kill him...’
‘You were angry,’ I said soothingly, hoping I was saying the right thing. ‘In your place I’d have felt the same way.’ Picturing his brutality, I shivered. I’d always been wary of him, but this new knowledge was frightening, it opened up areas of wickedness and depravity I’d never suspected, and made me suddenly suspicious of all men.
~~~
Bella and I generally spent a lot of time together during the day, but after that incident in the kitchen she began to spend nights in my room as well. It was awkward, because my bed was narrow, not big enough for two, and – rather against my better judgement – we swapped my bed for her wide
r one. She said she felt safer with me, that we were cosy together in her little room under the eaves, and it’s true we were; but I’d become used to being on my own, and Bella invaded my privacy. I liked some time to read, straining my eyes with a candle sputtering away on a chair by the bed; it was my pleasure at the end of a long, cold day.
As with many other things, the essence of this pleasure was not discovered until it had become a rarity. I was very fond of Bella, and had long admired her spirit and toughness, but after a while – after the kitchen incident, that is – I began to wonder whether it was no more than a surface disguise. She was still tough enough on the outside, in everyday life, but with me she became another Bella, more dependent somehow, needing my reassurance and advice on everything. She would hold my hand or link arms whenever we went out, and the nights spent together became more usual than otherwise. To begin with it was flattering. I felt I was helping her, I was her backbone, her support; we stood together against the icy winds of fate. If I was uneasy about recent developments then I told myself not to be selfish, Bella needed me.
The hugs and squeezes of friendship became warmer, in a literal as well as metaphorical sense. One night, when she had been telling me how much she disliked men and their kisses – which, apart from my experience with Mr Stoker, I could understand – we became quite silly in demonstrating to each other how we would like to be kissed. It was fun at first, and we could hardly pucker our lips for giggling; then it became warmer, a little more serious, a little more just so, with a teasing of lips and teeth and tongue that roused the blood more, I think, than either of us intended. We pressed against each other and, with closed eyes and burning lips, travelled the sensual journey from tenderness to passion. As the experiment went on, it was like being in an exquisitely drugged state, where all rational thought has ceased to be. In the midst of some inner fantasy, I was being kissed and caressed to oblivion by a delightful but faceless other being, so completely transported that none of the usual barriers came into play. I let myself go, floating on outstretched wings until I reached some extraordinary peak of sensation, and with a delightful shudder came plummeting down to earth.
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